


Number Nine

by itsthemoralityofit



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Death, Hospital, Injury, Instagram, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 16:00:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18920329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsthemoralityofit/pseuds/itsthemoralityofit
Summary: Theo Raeken used to be number nine on the lacrosse field.





	Number Nine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fandorasboxx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fandorasboxx/gifts), [SepticSam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SepticSam/gifts).



A blink.

Two blinks, in quick succession, and a throbbing pain behind his left eye.

 

Theo sat up, then froze as a lightening pain shot through his right rib. He ceased all efforts immediately, eyes shut as he breathed as gently as he could. He attempted to roll his shoulders back and found his progress impeded, left arm unyielding. It was heavy. No feeling in it. The tell-tale weightiness of a plaster cast.

Each inward breath ached his side and he frowned, attempting to alleviate both the ache there and the pain in his left eye socket. What little he'd been able to glimpse had shown him a plain white-tiled ceiling. Hospital. That much was obvious. He lay back for a moment, listening to the soft, steady beeping at his side.

'Theo?' a voice said warily.

As carefully as he could he opened his eyes.

 

A blink.

Three blinks. Slower this time. He smiled, lips cracking from the stretch.

'Hey man.' Scott's face collapsed, lines smoothing out in relief. His shoulders slumped and finally his asymmetric mouth widened into a tired grin.

'What the fuck happened?'

Then came the tale of the accident. The Stobart truck that had crashed into his left side at that junction between Pine and Croft. Paramedics. He'd been unconscious for four days now. Broken arm, shattered eye socket, bruised ribs, glass fragments removed from his neck and face, stitches in his eyebrow. Malia and Stiles and Lydia had been around every day, they were taking it in shifts; did he want some water? Or something else, Stiles was still at the store?

'I don't remember any of it,' Theo mumbled. His breath was coming out shallow, exhausted from the act of waking, flat out from listening. 'How do I not remember?'

'Concussion, most likely,' Scott replied. He shoved his hands in his pockets. 'You were hit pretty hard, they were surprised you weren't more hurt. Like, your truck is totalled dude.'

Theo's chest constricted painfully at the thought of his truck. His beautiful, secondhand truck. The first thing he'd ever bought for himself.

There was silence between them for a while, and Theo let his eyes flutter shut.

'Is my face completely fucked?' he asked tentatively.

His eyes opened in surprise at the splutter of laughter from the foot of his bed.

'Arrogant bastard...' Theo laughed, then groaned at the pain in his ribs.

 

 

*

 

They'd set Theo up in the living room for the first night; he was in too much pain to make the journey upstairs to his own bed. Besides, he figured it was best to have the TV in close range in case the painkiller wore off and kept him up all night.

That night he slept for thirteen hours straight.

 

 

 

'Where are you guys going?'

Scott paused as he slid his wallet into a back pocket. Car keys jangled as they hit the side of his face and slid down his chest, into his outstretched palm.

'Ow. To the store, you need anything?' Theo looked from his roommate, to Stiles, then back again.

'Can I come?' he asked.

'Are you strong enough?' Stiles asked skeptically. He eyed Theo. The pitiful slump of his shoulder weighed down with plaster. Violet and burgundy watercolour painting his left eye. Hair greased from sweat-drenched sleep.

'I could stay in the car. I'm bored here, it's been three days,' Theo said pathetically.

Twenty minutes and an awkward, mostly ineffectual shower later, Theo was trundling along happily in the back of Stiles' Jeep in a codeine fug. He watched as wide-eyed as he could as summer sped past them in yellows, greens, sidewalk-greys. His window was open and the breeze whipped at him, so he rolled it all the way down and stuck his head out, grinning with his eyes shut. Waves of conversation drifted over him as the sun warmed his skin, kissing its gaunt greyness.

'...lacrosse game?'

'Shit, I left my stick at work. Theo, do you mind if we make a pit stop at the high school?' Scott's voice floated through.

Theo, drunk on sunshine, did not reply.

 

When they arrived at the school Theo struggled out of the Jeep, wobbly on drugs and sun. He let his friends go ahead into the school, into Scott's office inside the gym, and he lagged behind. It had been years since he'd set foot here. How old was he now? Twenty four? Twenty-goddamn-four. And feeling it.

The codeine was beginning to wear off. His ribs were warming up to start singing in about twenty minutes time and his arm was so heavy in its cast his shoulder twanged with every step. But it was good to be out of the house.

His sneakers squeaked on linoleum as muscle memory led him down familiar corridors, and as he came to the gym he stopped. The trophy cabinet. He'd been in there, once upon a time. He still had that old picture somewhere - he and Scott with their arms around each other, Scott brandishing the all-state cup to the camera as Stiles lay with one leg and one arm cocked on the grass by their feet, making a kissy face. Theo smiled at the memory. Eleven, twenty-four, nine. Not much had changed in six years. Would it ever?

He wondered who wore number nine now as he approached the trophy cabinet. He scanned the photos for himself and his friends first, found one and grinned at it, then searched for his old jersey number.

'Huh.'

Beacon Hills High's current number nine was a square-jawed boy, smaller in frame than Theo. He looked so, so young, sandy hair sticking up in every direction as he glowered into the camera, mouth pouted. Theo snorted a little. Freshmen.

He glanced at the year the photo was dated - three years ago - and scanned the shelf for a more recent team picture. He found it. The photo, taken last season, showed the entire lacrosse team. Number nine had filled out, it seemed, and made it as captain. He'd lost the glare too - now he grinned at the camera, broad shoulders back, hands clasped together.

'Liam Dunbar,'

Theo read aloud in a whisper.

 

 

*

 

The next week Theo spent sleeping - but it was a mark of progress that he spent it sleeping in his own bed and not sprawled on a sofa downstairs. His eating habits were getting better too, managing a full meal at least twice a day (he had some serious work to do if he was going to catch up on those lost gains). At this rate he'd be back at work in no time. The only problem, it seemed, was the nightmares.

They rarely happened in the day time when Theo was blanketed in a soft, drug-induced fugue. But nights. Last night he had awoken in a sweat, chest heaving painfully, with an ache in his skin that would not be soothed. His face had been wet with tears, sobs caught in his throat as he wrenched himself from dream after dream of blinding white lights and roaring impact.

Lips pressed together, determined not to wake Scott, Theo roused himself from his soaked sheets and turned on his bedside lamp. 2:30am. He stood, resolving to go downstairs and pour himself just enough water for another painkiller and leave the dehydration headache for tomorrow, when his open closet door caught his eye. He stopped in front of it, taking in his mostly monochrome clothing. Only a single bubblegum pink hoodie popped out at him, and in the corner his maroon lacrosse jersey.

Number nine.

The current number nine's face stood out clearly in Theo's memory but for the life of him he could not recall the kid's name. Lee. Leonard. Lawrence? This was going to bother him.

Abandoning his plan of going downstairs and getting water, Theo dry-swallowed a pill and grabbed his laptop, taking a heavy seat at his desk. He was resolutely ignoring his email inbox, so sure it was bursting with work crapola, and typed 'beacon hllis hgh lacrosse' into Google.

Liam. The current number nine was Liam. Liam Dunbar, to be precise.

With a self-satisfied nod, Theo clicked out of the page, folded his laptop, and made his way back to bed.

Three minutes and forty seconds later he grabbed his phone from his bedside table with a strenuous grunt.

_ilim dunbar insta_

_liam dunb inata_

_LIAM DUNBAR INSTAGRAM_

Jesus.

Liam's Dunbar's Instagram handle was @liamtheWolf, the second result to appear in the search. With no more than a cursory scroll to ensure it was in fact the right Liam Dunbar, Theo finally locked his screen and threw his phone onto the pillow beside him with a soft flump. The codeine was taking effect now.

He smiled as he slipped out of consciousness.

 

*

 

The most recent photo, Theo saw as he scrolled in between bites of cereal, was of number nine looking away from the camera. He was on some kind of public transport, half smiling as he looked out of a window. The next photo was a lacrosse group shot. Then another group shot. Then a lacrosse jersey picture. Yet another lacrosse team picture. Jeez, did this kid ever do anything that wasn't lacrosse?

Theo chewed as quickly as he could, desperate for the little pill that would quell the ache revving up in his side and face and arm.

Another team picture, another team picture, another...hold on. Now this was the content Theo was looking for. Number nine was poolside, shirtless and tanned with his arms behind him, supporting his weight as he lounged on the tiled floor in plain black shorts. He wore sunglasses, pouted lips parted slightly as if he wasn't ready for the camera. The sunlight made a golden halo of his hair. Theo swiped backwards and onto the next photo.

This time the boy was in the water, leaning with his elbows on the poolside, smiling. The arresting blue of his eyes sans aviators made the water dull somehow, lifeless. Theo stared. He looked away from the screen for a moment, blinking and adjusting his vision, before grabbing a pill from its bottle and turning back to his phone. _Those eyes._

Swallowing his painkiller, Theo flicked to the next photo. He tensed. Liam Dunbar was shirtless (again) in black and white, one hand tugging at his sleep-mussed spikes of hair as he lay on his front in bed. He looked debauched and.. _.like sex_. Theo's dick twitched and he blushed, double pressing the home button and exiting the page altogether. Jesus, he needed to get a hold of himself.

 

 

 

By the end of the day Theo had made it to inbox:0, and was whistling around the house as he boiled water for pasta. For the first time in weeks he was awake when Scott arrived home from work, and so they sat and ate dinner together, chatting companiably about Theo's inbox and painkiller supply, and Scott's students. There had been some kind of accident, he was a player short on the field...The details were foggy, codeine weighing Theo down and robbing him of comprehension, but he didn't mind. He was just glad to be awake and active again. This morning the stitches had dissolved where the doctor had patched up his brow, and there was only a thin scar bisecting the hair there. He could live with that.

Humming in satisfaction and determined to wait out the last ten minutes until his next acceptable dose of medication, Theo lay back on his bed and counted out how many more days the little orange bottle on his bedside would buy him of pain relief. Four more. In all honesty he could afford to maybe slow down a little on the dosage; his face had largely stopped singing and his ribs only hurt when he sneezed. He'd decide later.

His fingers itched for his phone. He blew upwards into his overgrown hair and resolved not to linger on any one post - especially not that black and white one - before loading the page that had preoccupied his attention for an entire twenty four hours now.

The first tile he tapped, picking up where he left off, was a video. Liam Dunbar was looking at the person filming, blue eyes gleaming in the kitchen light.

'Now?' he asked.

'Yeah,' camera man replied.

At that, Liam Dunbar began gyrating, dancing without music before stopping and grinning directly into the camera.

'We did it guys! We raised way more than our target, and it's all thanks to you! Come down to the game on Friday and see your donations at work!'

A maroon lacrosse jersey flew into shot slightly left of him and landed on the floor. He followed it, bending to pick it up, and just before the camera cut out, Theo heard him say,

'that was the worst throw.'

Theo grinned. He replayed the video twice more, then returned to the boy's Instagram page. He was beginning to get an idea of this Liam Dunbar. He'd turned eighteen back in March which meant that he'd be graduating this summer. His best friend was a guy called @hewITTZYaBoi who did not play lacrosse and was bad at throwing. He wanted to study South American history and trade routes at college, and had already been accepted into two.

And he was gorgeous in glasses. Theo swallowed at the picture of number nine in a plain white t shirt that clung to his chest and shoulders, fingers held up in a sign of the horns. Theo tapped the picture for tags and followed the handle in black. The best friend who couldn't throw.

He scrolled some. Most of the pictures were duplicates of the ones posted on Liam's own page. One was a sweet shot of Liam with his arm around his best friend's shoulders, smacking a kiss onto the boy's mahogany-brown cheek while he grimaced. Theo smiled at that.

Then he stopped at a video thumbnail. It was an accompaniment to the picture on Liam's page, the one of number nine in those damn glasses. It was only a couple of seconds long.

'Do I look like Clark Kent?' Liam asked. He made a smarmy face and wiggled his eyebrows, exaggerating as he slid the thick black frames onto his face.

'You look like a loser,' camera man (most likely best friend who couldn't throw) replied.

Theo grinned, torn between amusement at the response, and the semi-hardening of his dick at the sight of those frames. He licked his lips, wiped his palms on his sweatpants, and played the video four more times.

 

*

 

Today was the last day Theo had home from work. He'd well and truly run out of codeine, and was now only occasionally popping paracetamol-ibuprofen cocktails. He'd so far showered, ironed his clothes for the week, shaved, gone for a walk and a hair cut, and (over the course of an hour, one-handedly) changed his bedsheets. He took up his phone as he turned on the washing machine and pushed himself up on the countertop, wincing at the pain in his ribs. He took a second to recover his breath, then opened up his favourite page.

He'd made it to the very end of both Liam's and his best friend's pages a couple of days ago and now he was simply revisiting the best posts. There hadn't been any new posts in all the time that Theo had found the account, but whatever. Teenagers were busy - especially lacrosse captains about to go to college. Scott must know him. The thought struck Theo afresh, with the lightening-bolt clarity of someone who had only just finished a four week dose of codeine. He'd ask Scott about him. What kind of captain he was, whether he was as fun as he appeared to be on his Instagram page (he'd leave out the Instagram part of course).

And if Scott asked why? Well, it was a healthy interest in the kid who was now wearing Theo's number. Curiosity was natural. Healthy.

Theo smiled softly at the photo before him. Liam was kneeling on the ground outside, a puppy in his arms. His eyes were glittering even in the still camera focus, cheeks flushed with joy.

 

'Hey,' said a heavy voice. Theo looked up, forced out of his reverie. Scott was clad in a black suit, black tie. Theo frowned.

'You look like you've just been to a funeral.'

'Almost,' Scott said with a sigh. He looked wrung out. 'We had a memorial service for that kid today.'

'What kid?'

'The one I was telling you about the other day.' Scott stared. Theo stared back. '...The kid that got hit by the same Stobart truck that hit you.'

'Wait, what?'

'You don't remember?' Scott asked, head tilted. He ran a hand over his exhausted face, loosening his tie. 'Here.'

Theo took the programme from his roommate's outstretched hand and scanned the front.

Frowning, he took up his phone and loaded the page he'd viewed so frequently it autofilled with every visit, and tapped the most recent post. Tapped it a second time for tags. He followed it to @hewITTZYaBoi's page. There was new picture, posted today. The same photo as the one on the programme. It was captioned, ' _I love you buddy. I'll look for you everywhere I go._ ' With a black heart.

'He was a good kid, you'd have liked him,' Scott was saying. 'He wore your number, weirdly enough. Number nine.'

Theo set his phone face down on the counter. He stared at the programme in his hand.

 

**Beacon Hills High Memorial Service**

**Liam Dunbar**

**1997-2015**

 

 


End file.
